Candlelight
by Duck Life
Summary: Bella is taken away from her safe family, wrapped up in a strange and mysterious evil... WARNING: Even I don't know how it ends... Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

I stopped reading my book and looked over to the piano when I heard its soft music. Edward was sitting at the piano, his pale fingers drifting across the keys. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling slightly. His soft music melted into my lullaby, one that had not put me to sleep in a long time. I sighed happily and returned to my book- my old collection of Jane Austen classics. At once, the music stopped, and I felt Edward's smooth arms wrap around me.

"Is my music not interesting enough?" he teased in a purr. I rolled my eyes and kissed him.

"I wasn't under the impression that you were playing for me," I told him, setting my book on the fireplace behind me. He was abruptly serious.

"I always play for you." His golden eyes were suddenly full of a deeply sorrowful beauty. I reached up and touched his cheek.

"Why are you sad?" I asked, confused. His light mood returned, and he smiled.

"I'm not," he informed me, taking my hand from his face and holding it over my silent heart. "I'm not _sad_, I'm… disbelieving." I stared at him, still not understanding.

"Why?" I asked. He sighed, leaning against the arm of my chair.

"I just can't imagine how I could suddenly end up with everything I've ever wanted, and more," he clarified. I laughed.

"Don't expect an answer from me, I'm just as surprised." He took my hand again, and I saw something in his eyes- more sorrow? No, it was fear. A quiet and subtle, almost entirely masked fear. Instantaneously, I understood. He was afraid, because I was the one person who could take all of his happiness away from him, and he thought it would be easy for me to do.

He thought.

"Edward, don't you know me at all?" I whispered, cupping my hand around his face. "I _can't _leave you. I love you, Edward, and I'm not running away. You have to accept that." The sorrow and fear left him, but the lightness did not ensue. He simply looked thoughtful now. "But," I continued, "_You_ _could _take everything away. And I'm afraid of that." He shook his hand, brushing my hand off of his chin and taking my head in his firm hands.

"Bella, I will never leave you. I _cannot _leave you. I will always be here, if that's what you want, and if it's not, then I'll still be here, asking for you back." His fierceness was odd in comparison to the joking mood he'd been in earlier.

"Let's just never leave each other," I compromised. He smiled, his joyful mood returning, to my relief.

"That sounds like a plan." He leaned in and kissed me, and I knew that I had him forever…

That night, he had returned to the piano, and was lightly playing his music. I could hear him from the garden. I had decided to take a walk, simply to watch the moon and admire the flowers that adorned the cottage. I did this often. I had decided that, if I had forever to live, there was time to just sit back and watch the grass grow. I sat down in the bench, leaning back and looking up at the stars. They were so _bright_- so vibrant and full of color and radiance. I hadn't noticed when I was human.

Feeling I would never stop staring at the magnificent sky, I was surprised when a flicker of light brought me back to earth. I stared out at the forest, the source of the distraction. The painted moonlight bathed the trees and overgrown shrubs in illumination, seeking out the shadows and dipping them in white light. Then came the glimmer again. Small effulgence gleamed from the deep wood. I frowned, perplexed. What would such a luminescence be doing in the forest? Were there people out there?

Curious, I stood and edged cautiously towards the trees. The shining beam encouraged me. It sputtered, drawing me closer. I kept walking, and found myself right at the edge where the smooth ground gave way to rocky, uneven terrain and tree trunks. "_Into the woods_," I sang to myself quietly, thinking of the old musical. Why was I afraid, anyway? (_There's something in the glade there._) I was strong, I was a vampire. Was there really anything that could harm me? (_The woods are just trees, the trees are just wood._) Yes, I thought to myself, yes there was. (_Hello, little girl._) The Volturi certainly could harm me. In fact, come to think of it, any group of vampires more than two could probably take me down. Unfortunately, fear could not contain my inquisitiveness. And so, I continued on into the woods. (_And home before dark!_)

I wafted through the thick plant-life like smoke, like steam, continuing anxiously toward the end of my maze. The shadows were beginning to look menacing, contrasting with the pale moonlight. Finally, I reached the source of the strange beacon that had loomed ahead of me for what felt like too long a time. And I stared at it, surprised. And then…


	2. Chapter 2

**EDWARD'S POV**

I stroked the piano keys, listening to the sweet music with my fingers as well as my ears. Melodious thrumming filled the room tangibly. I gloried in it, nodding my head with the tune. I heard Renesmee's imaginings shifting to a bright flower-filled meadow as the tones incorporated into her dreams. I fingered the ivories once more, holding down for a stretching note that ended the song and faded into the peaceful silence.

I stood up and peeked out the window, searching for my wife. The ground was decorated with ghostly images, the shadows of the gnarled tree branches above forming into tangled, fearsome images, first becoming a tall man, then a snarling wolf-man, then a shrouded assembly of vampires. I shuddered, wincing as I pictured my Bella being overcome by another vampire, then a werewolf, then the Volturi. _Silly_, I thought, shaking myself. Bella was just outside, and I knew that. Perhaps I _was _a little paranoid. I slid open the door and edged through, still unexplainably nervous, even as I turned to see her in our tiny garden.

To see her in our tiny garden.

_Where was she_? Millions of images raced through my mind, there in a second, gone in an instant, of her in danger, her screaming, her falling down, down, all the while my hands groping the air uselessly, as if hoping that I would find her, that she would appear. Bella, Bella, my Bella. Frantically, I sprinted to the garden, hoping desperately and futilely that she was there, hidden from my view. But of course not. Bella was gone- I couldn't even hear her.

"Bella!" I cried, terror and pain saturating my voice. "Bella, where are you? Bella!" Unfortunately, if I couldn't hear her, she probably couldn't hear me- if she was still capable of hearing anything. "Bella!" I screamed, aimlessly wandering towards the woods.

Then, I caught her scent. A small drop of euphoria touched me in my desperate state of despair, and I followed the trail. As I glided swiftly through the forest, I tried to think rationally. Maybe she had simply gone hunting and not told me. Still, the words "not her, not her, not her" kept repeating in my head like a heartbeat, marking the time. I was reminded sickeningly of the day she'd nearly been crushed by a car, and I wondered how I had ever let her out of my sight after that incident.

"Bella!" I pleaded to the empty night. Her scent was growing stronger, fresher. I could tell that she'd been here most recently. Hopefully, I rounded a tree into a small clearing. Her scent was very, very strong, as if she were standing right next to me. "Bella," I whispered. The clearing was empty. Her trail simply stopped right in the middle of the clearing, right in front of a small, smoking pile of wax.


	3. Chapter 3

**BELLA'S POV**

There, in the middle of the small clearing was a candle. It was wedged into the earth, flickering in the slight breeze. I was confused. Who had lit a candle out here? It was so strange. I tried to catch a scent, but all I could smell, apart from the normal forest smells, was wax and fire, as if the candle had simply appeared.

Suddenly, the scent of fire overpowered me. It was too close. I gasped- the fire had risen up like a snake and coiled around me. Before I could acknowledge how utterly impossible this was, I was burning.

It was disconcerting. When I'd become a vampire, I'd desperately bargained with myself for large quantities of other pains, other pains that had felt so much to me then, and were dwarfed by the pain of transformation. I remembered how I'd struggled to keep from screaming, how it was all I could do, and how I couldn't think. Everyone had said that the fire of vampire venom was the worst pain imaginable.

And, until now, I'd believed the same thing.

I wasn't strong enough to keep from screaming now. I yelped in agony, in so much agony that it was almost indescribable to my mind. However, my anguished shriek had barely left my mouth when the pain stopped. I hadn't realized that I'd closed my eyes, so maybe everything was just dark. I felt like I was spinning effortlessly. My head felt light, as if I were soaring at an incredible height.

Then, abruptly, I landed. I was lying on a cool, stony surface, still in utter darkness. I tasted my surroundings, and froze.

It was too good, too unbearably wonderful that I had to take another breath, and another, and then I was sitting up, drawing in deep, racking breaths. Delicious. It was almost painful to not be there, breathing in the scent from as close as possible. I followed it, sniffing the air and sighing.

As I wandered, I could sense another presence near me. It was shaking, terrified. And then I froze.

With the fire in my throat flaring in misery, I stopped moving forward. Only now I appreciated Edward's struggle the first day he'd met me. I didn't want to be a killer, but I _couldn't _not attack.

_Edward, think of Edward_, my mind insisted. I was shocked that I could still think in words. I pictured his face, and backed away, feeling as if a giant magnet were drawing me in the other direction. I stopped backing up and bounded forward, collapsing on my knees. _I'm an animal_, I thought hopelessly, panting and taking another whiff of the heart-wrenching aroma.

"That's it," purred an icy voice from behind me. "Follow your senses."


	4. Chapter 4

**JASPER'S POV**

Alice laid down an ace in front of me and grinned smugly, taking my stack of cards. "You know, I don't think this game is fair," I joked, ruffling my angel's spiky hair.

"Why?" she asked, laughing. "Because I know what cards you have?" She smiled up at me in mock innocence. I shook my head.

"Because you made up this game, and you change the rules as you go," I pointed out. She pouted.

"Stop being a sore sport and keep playing Crazy Alices," she commanded, straightening her towering pile of playing cards. I sighed, teasing, and drew fie cards from a stack between us: five kings. It didn't really make it easier, the fact that our deck was comprised of all the decks we'd ever owned, minus the hundreds we'd lost over the years.

I smirked at Alice and presented one of the kings. She grumbled, not bother to change the rules in her favor, and handed me her cards.

"Hey," I began, "could you read my future using these cards?" I asked, grinning.

"Certainly," she said mysteriously, adopting a dreamy, gypsy-esque voice. She collected the cards into a pile, shuffled them easily and placed the pile on the floor. She drew four cards without looking and spread them across the floor, face-down. She flipped over the first card, revealing , in this case, either one of the many or the only jack of spades. She waved her hand over the card and looked up at me. "I see…" Her eyes glazed over as she attempted to find my future. I waited patiently.

Abruptly, I realized that something was wrong. Her eyes were not empty, but they were not here. Alice's pale golden eyes suddenly filled with terror, with pure fear. "Alice?" I asked worriedly, shaking her shoulder. "Alice, what's wrong?" I expected her to snap back, probably in horror, or to run out of the house, trying to fix something. However, she remained lost to me, still afraid of something invisible to those around her. "Alice," I pleaded.

And then she screamed. "Alice, Alice, what is it?" I begged. She twitched, still shrieking.

"No, no!" she yelled, jerking away from my hand, scattering the forgotten cards. Some distracted part of my wondered who wanted to play 607-pickup.

"What is it, what is it?" I gasped.

"Fire!" she screamed. "I'm burning!" I wondered if she was having some flashback of her creation. "The candle, the candle!" Candle? "I'm _in _the candle!"

"Alice, please, come back to me," I cried. Her gaze flickered, and her eyes seemed to rest on me.

"Don't hurt him," she murmured. "Bella, don't hurt Dylan."

**A/N: Please review and tell me if you caught the FlashForward reference, not that this has anything to do with that. Happy tomorrow eve!**


	5. Chapter 5

**BPOV**

I had curled up in a tight ball and wrapped my arms around myself, as if I could hold in my humanity. The pressing _need_ to attack was inescapable, and I felt my hands involuntarily curl into claws. Venom pooled in my mouth.

The mystery voice _wanted _me to drink this blood, and that, at least, gave me another reason not to. However, reasons were difficult to understand when the awful and wonderful aroma gripped you in its wicked talons and pulled you towards it. I felt like a paper clip sitting before a giant magnet. The blood dragged me towards it. I sobbed with desperation, but the mystery voice said nothing.

"Bella." I gasped and looked around wildly. The mystery voice made no sound to acknowledge that he had heard my name spoken. "Bella, I'm here," said Alice.

_Where is _here_?_ I thought fiercely. She said nothing. _Alice?_ I wondered if she could hear me, or if it was more of a one-way communication. Or perhaps I was going crazy.

"You have to think harder than that." I frowned and gritted my teeth. I pictured Alice, Alice Cullen, Mary Alice Brandon, vegetarian vampire, pixie-like shopper, annoying, caring, hard-working, psychic Alice…

_Where am I?_ I asked again.

"It's sort of a world, I think, but not really. Like a shadow world. You're in an underground prison cell."

_Where are you? _She didn't answer. _Alice, Alice, please, I'm scared, don't leave me, Alice, I'm here, wherever that is, Alice, Alice, answer me!_ I felt dry sobs envelop me once again, but Alice was silent.

Then, I saw a message appear in the air, written in golden fire, and I knew that it was the last time I would hear from Alice in a long time, perhaps forever.

**I CAN'T SEE YOU.**


	6. Chapter 6

**ALICE'S POV**

It's astounding and disturbing how life can go from perfect to terrible in a single draw of a card. Everything had been so easy, so normal- playing Crazy Alices with Jasper, joking, and then I'd looked into the future. I felt like that was the beginning of the end. Maybe what I'd thought I'd seen had only been what I'd expected, and consequentially imagined. I had seen, or thought I'd seen, a flash of Jasper, holding me in his arms- not unnatural at all. But then, in the middle of my vision, while my mind was seeking, I felt as if it had plunged down into darkness, completely unaware. One moment I was watching a collage of happy moments with Jasper and my family, and the next I was falling, falling, into a black pit of fire. Not a pit, exactly- a searing candle, blistering and scorching my skin. How could a vision feel so real? Of course, it wasn't a vision, but concrete and real, because I could feel the awful fire. I saw pictures in the fire: Bella, crouching in a dark room, and a boy, a small boy cowering from her. _Dylan_. In one clear, sharp, and jarring moment, I was in Jasper's arms again. He was worried, frantic. The images I'd seen seemed burned in my mind. "Don't hurt him. Bella, don't hurt…Dylan."

And then darkness. Not the open darkness of standing in an unlit room, but the safe yet vulnerable darkness of having closed eyes and not being able to open them. I struggled, but they stayed firmly shut. I tried to replay recent events in my head and was startled to find another presence in my mind. It was Bella.

I could see her and communicate with her, like we were telepaths. This situation just kept getting stranger, and when I didn't think it could get any more complicated, it did. Bella disappeared. Somehow, without knowing that I could, and yet somehow sure that I would be able to, I summoned the fire from before and sent a last, fleeting message to my sister-in-law.

"Alice," greeted a dry voice, and I finally found that I could open my eyes. I was sitting in a dim room across a heavily cloaked figure.

"Who are you?" I demanded, finding bravery. "What have you done?"

"Questions, questions," he dismissed snidely. "This is my world, Alice Cullen. Welcome."


	7. Chapter 7

**OMNISCIENT POV**

Jasper rushed to Carlisle's office, where Carlisle sat at his desk, leafing through some medical papers. He spun around when he heard Jasper enter. Jasper was carrying Alice in his arms. "What happened?" Carlisle exclaimed.

"She was looking into the future," Jasper told him, "but she didn't come out of it, and then she started screaming, said she was burning, and then she started screaming, said she was burning, and then something about a candle."

"A candle?" inquired Carlisle, perplexed. He looked at his daughter. "Is she… unconscious?" Carlisle asked, shocked. Jasper nodded, and Carlisle's eyes widened. "Let me… I mean, if vampires even _have _vitals," muttered Carlisle, taking Alice in his arms. He put his hand to her throat, trying to feel something, searching for, perhaps, the flow of _something_, blood or venom. Frowning, he checked her eyes methodically. "She was having a vision when she… passed out?" he asked.

"Yes." Carlisle shook his head and felt along Alice's rib cage for expanding lungs.

And then, Edward flew into the room. "Bella's gone," he choked. "She's gone, she just disappeared, and I found a candle in the woods-"

"What?" asked Carlisle, looking up. "A candle?" He stared at a distraught Edward, then at Jasper, and he thought about candles, and Jasper, and Alice. Then, though he knew it was too late, because a bout of anxiety and fear that was not his own had just plagued him, he abandoned his daughter and leapt towards Jasper. "Jasper, no!" he shouted, but it was too late. Jasper crumpled to the floor.


	8. Chapter 8

**EDWARD'S POV**

"Tune me out," commanded Carlisle, lifting Jasper and Alice and spreading them out along his desk, Hurriedly, I closed my eyes and thought my own thoughts. They were all anxious and grievous. _What happened to Bella? Where was she? Was she… _gone_? _Anguish drew a harsh cry from my throat.

"Talk to me," I hissed.

"I think that whatever happened to Jasper and Alice happened due to their… gifts," said Carlisle. "Maybe that's what happened to Bella, too."

"No," I answered. "Carlisle- she just _disappeared_. No scent. Right where I found that candle stub."

"Edward…" began Carlisle. "Do you think… I mean-"

"Talk faster! Carlisle, you have to get to the point, or I might try to _find _your point!" I shouted. He looked surprised, but only for a moment.

"Do you think she could have been burned?" he asked, quick and blunt but still gentle.

"No," I replied sharply. "I would have still smelled _something_. Besides, it would take longer." I shook my head.

"This doesn't make any sense," exclaimed Carlisle bitterly. Then, he stood up. "Where's Renesmee?"

"At home, sleeping," I answered, confused.

"Alone?" he asked, glancing out the window. I stared at him dubiously.

"Of course not, why would I- no! NO! Rosalie!"


End file.
